Despite the cluelessness of Digital River (who do still handle e-commerce for SB, but send support messages in a loop to their own addresses), the eStore came through.

I have to give high marks to the SB shipping department for my package. The empeg box was inside another huge box with lots of peanuts and a small invoice. On the outside, on the FedEx paperwork, the unit was valued at US$169 for customs! Yes. This is how you ship something from the US to Canada. I'm glad someone else "got it" without me having to ask for special consideration. :)

This saved me CAD$126.65 :) The FedEx tracking system wasn't helpful at all however both the physical package as well as all its computer-based paperwork shows up. Made it look like my package was bouncing around from US to Canada and back to US. Next was a somewhat ignorant employee I spoke to on the phone who was trying to assure me that this package would NOT be delivered because I was an "individual" and did not have a pre-arranged broker. She told me I could sign over a power of attorney to FedEx or go to the customs house to clear it myself. Not like anything I've ever experienced with express service from FedEx. Later talking to someone else this was cleared up. FedEx paid my taxes and cleared the package and would deliver tomorrow & collect the fees. Or I was free to come and pick it up and pay them right then. I didn't have to think twice.. :)

Congrats on your winfall, even better will be the enjoyment you'll have once you are actually using your empeg-car excuse me (Rio-car) to you.

Hey what's up! So you bought finally bought a Rio Car, just a couple of weeks after me! What did you do with your NEO35? Assuming your the same person from the NEO message board :)

What size drive did you get? I also live in Canada but $750 was marked on the box as the value! So I ended up paying $300+ tax!

Yep, it's me also from the Neo forum. I still have my Neo Car Jukebox (it's the newer one, not the 35). I'll be selling it shortly - either with a 20GB HD or empty (depending on whichever the purchaser prefers).

I still think the Neo is a great idea and a cool simple unit, but unfortunately, with whatever combination of 60GB drive and r3mix LAME with ID3V2 files I was running, I'd get a hiccup every now and then in a song. That was with it sitting on my desk. So, I decided to go with the empeg (I won't call it a Rio, even though it is I suppose :)

I'm now missing high speed file transfers, but all the added features of configuration and 3rd party development will outweigh that. Though it doesn't stop me from "wishing" we had 100baseTX Ethernet instead of 10baseT...

I'm "just" about to install the software and connect the empeg for the first time. I'm going to play with 1.03 for a day or two and then go directly to 2beta3.

In the meantime, I'm going to dig around and find out if it's worth my time installing the developer version of the software. I've been pretty busy and unfortunately haven't been able to read about all the details I normally would when getting into a new product.

I bought the 10GB model because I could not justify the markup on the larger models. I will be taking the storage up with another drive shortly and will probably replace the 10GB as well. In fact I may replace the 10GB right away with something else. I have a 6GB drive sitting around here somewhere, but that's too small for me to even consider throwing in. :) Looking at recent prices, the best deal seems to be on 30GB drives. So maybe I'll get one of those for now to tide me over and then see how long it takes for prices on 48GB or the just announced 60GB drives to drop.

They marked $750 on the box? Wow. That would include the shipping amount. Rough. But tax on that would still only be around 181, not 300... :) Unless you ordered from the UK and also had to pay a duty on top of PST+GST?

I'm going to play with 1.03 for a day or two and then go directly to 2beta3.

I recommend you stick with 1.03 for a while, since it's your first time with the player. 2b3 has some great features, but there are a few bugs being reported that might spoil your enjoyment. 1.03 might not have as many features, but it's rock-stable and won't give you any surprises.

Definitely do all your music uploads and playlist mangling with 1.03. When you're settled in with it and you think you're ready for a walk on the wild side, then go for one of the 2.0 betas. By that time, there might be a newer beta out with fewer bugs anyway.

Especially since you were complaining about the playback hiccup in the Neo unit... one of the 2.0 bugs is a playback hiccup.

Oops... Sorry they charged me PST & GST on $1129 so it came to $180 or something. And I did order it from the US eStore. The reason for $750 was I ordered 2 coloured face plate kits (not sure why I ordered 2... incase the colour I like get's scratched?) There didn't seem to be any duty, just the tax!

I'm trying to decide now if I'd upgrade the drive :)

Anyone know (because I haven't taken the time to search yet :) if there is an option to request a BLUE face with a kit? Blue is the only color I'd really like to have a duplicate of. though I do suppose I could get some of the other colors and then trade them with someone else...

You have to contact support if you want another blue face.

Last I heard, extra blue faces were waiting on getting coated. Any word on this, Rob?

We have them now.

Rob

Hi,

So you're sending them out until you get blue in the face?

Sorry, couldn't resist.

Shouldn't that be blue in the fascia?

Sorry, sorry, I'm soooooo sorry.....